Fintechwebnews.co.uk reports that in recent years, High Street banking has been changing. Familiar banks like Lloyds, Halifax, Santander and Barclays have been trying to keep up with financial technology company’s challenger banks.

A good example of this is Barclays’ app Pingit. Pingit makes it possible to transfer money by linking the customer’s mobile phone number to their bank.

Well-known, well-established banks are having to offer better customer service, better products and innovations to keep up with challenger banks.

What are challenger banks and how are they different?

Challenger banks are new versions of banks that are built completely on modern technology, rather than relying on outdated banking technology like traditional legacy banks.

Because they utilise the best new technology, challenger banks can offer better interest rates, less and lower fees and better service. Most of these banks don’t even have branches.

In the UK, these banks are growing in popularity as people lose faith in legacy banks. Here at fintechwebnews.co.uk, we understand that problems like the 2008 crash and the mis-selling of PPI insurance have shaken people’s confidence in legacy banks, leading them to search for alternatives.

Fledgling Starling Bank looking for investment

UK bank Starling is planning to raise £40 million from investors to drive its expansion further into Europe. The bank doesn’t have a single branch and customers completely manage their account through the company’s app.

Starling offers lots of advantages for customers. They boast of zero fees, even when using a card abroad. Another great feature of their service is that whenever a customer uses their card, it is displayed on their app instantly and a notification is sent to their phone. This is a vast improvement on slow mobile banking apps offered by legacy banks like NatWest.

Android and Apple Pay is also supported by Starling Bank, making paying for thing much simpler, without even needing a card.

Starling Bank was given banking passport rights in Ireland in June, marking its first expansion into a European Union country. The bank’s initial funding round started in January 2016 and raised £48 million.

For more interesting and exciting fintech news, visit back at fintechwebnews.co.uk.

Here at fintechwebnews.co.uk, we have learnt that with today’s tumultuous financial landscape, it’s no wonder that big banks have been struggling to navigate. Many have teamed up with fintech start-ups to stay ahead of the curve. This strategy has helped many banks stay afloat and ahead of the game.

Even though banks can find success working with fintechs, the rate of development and expansion of fintech companies is weighing on the banks, forcing them to adapt or collapse.

The public’s confidence in banks has also taken a blow, after the crisis of 2008 and large public scandals like the mis-selling of PPI insurance. In response to this lack of trust, the fintech sector has exploded in the last few years, providing customers with alternative choices.

Fintechs vs. traditional banks

Fintechwebnews.co.uk has reported that fintechs have begun to offer genuine and viable alternatives to traditional banks. Many of these alternatives have clear benefits like better service and value for money.

These banks, known as ‘challenger banks’ are squaring up to well-known high street banks like Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and Santander. One great benefit of the added competition on the banking scene is that the existing High Street banks are driving for more innovation and improving their customer service.

These new banks are built around cutting-edge technology and aren’t the subject of any recent scandals. This is why banks like Metro Bank and Aldermore and dominating best buy tables.

Big changes for consumers

Because of the new competition in the industry, High Street banks have been forced to co-operate with fintechs. A great example is Barclay’s mobile payment service Pingit. It was designed to compete with Apple Pay.

Other banks have taken a less direct approach, launching new mobile banking businesses away from their well-established one. This is probably to get a fresh reputation away from their traditional bank image.

It’s not just commercial banking that has been changed by fintech. The worlds of retail banking, lending and wealth management has been affected too. Start-up fintech companies like Maxmywealth aim to change the way people manage their assets forever.

The Algomi news for today is that the London fintech has teamed up with well-established data collection and analytics company S&P Global. This is just the latest in a series of three partnerships made by Algomi in the last six months.

This rapid expansion and investment is great news for Algomi. News that will cement their position as an important and influential company in the financial technology world.

Algomi’s success partnering with companies in the past will have no doubt influenced S&P Global’s decision to choose Algomi.

Algomi’s great track record

Algomi has a good history when it comes to forming essential partnerships. From their inception in 2013, Algomi has partnered with numerous larger companies such as Euronext, the pan-European exchange, and AllianceBernstein, earlier this year.

The first of their three investments this year came fromOpenFin. The partnership with OpenFin allows Algomi to roll out its Honeycomb and Synchronicity products quickly and upload updates to the software more quickly and easily.

Companies like Algomi are chosen by market incumbents because of their ability to change and evolve rapidly with the tumultuous, post-Brexitreferendum market. OpenFin allows Algomi to do this efficiently.

Algomi’s expanding software catalogue

Algomi’s second investment this year came in the form of a new software to market exclusively. Algomi was chosen, after a long search, by AllianceBernstein to be the sole marketers of their software ALFA.

Algomi’s focus as a software company swayed AllianceBernstein towards Algomi. ALFA is a fixed-income liquidity and analytics tool that fits in very well with Algomi’s existing products.

Algomi News: the future is bright for UK fintech

Algomi’s partnership with S&P Global includes development plans for new software and a plan to share data collected from Algomi’s software networks.

Algomi’s software will also receive data injections from S&P Global’s vast data collection network. This works out well for both companies and the people who rely on their services and products to help them to make more profitable decisions.

If Algomi’s streak of investments over the last six months is anything to go by, Algomi is a fintech to keep an eye on.

There has been a lot of good news recently for Algomi. News now is that the relatively new fintech company haspartnered with leading data and index provider S&P Global.

Algomi’s partnership with S&P Global is their third partnership in six months. Gaining this investment has secured Algomi’s growth for the coming years and cemented their place as a hard hitter in their sector.

The investment bought S&P a minority share in Algomi and a seat at the board of directors. Algomi plans to grow its product offering with this investment.

Who are S&P Global?

S&P Global provides essential intelligence to anyone who needs it in the financial world. They help people make betterinformed decisions by providing them with relevant, up-to-date data.

They manage 135 billion data points, scattered all over the world to gather this vital information.They also work around the clock to analyse the raw data and present it in an understandable way.

The data is used to make huge, world-changing decisions, so it’s an extremely important job that S&P Global does.

Partnerships pushing into new markets

S&P Global and Algomi intend to work together, S&P using Algomi’s bond trading technology to push into new markets around the world. Because of Algomi’s data collection, S&P’s intelligence team can work together and share information.

Commenting on the partnership, Douglas L. Peterson, president and CEO of S&P Global, said: “We think very highly of Algomi and are excited about the opportunity to bring our data, technologies and deep analytics into additional market segments. By partnering with Algomi, we will further leverage the power of big data and artificial intelligence to create even more opportunities to deliver value to our and Algomi’s customers.”

Development of new products from both companies is also on the cards, with software being the main concern of Algomi. News of another partnership for Algomi doesn’t come as a surprise, with Algomi snapping up awards and accolades left and right since the company’s launch in 2012.

It’s clear that, through partnerships, there are bright things on the horizon for Algomi and whoever chooses to partner with this success story.

The news here at fintechwebnews.co.uk is that the UK is leading the pack when it comes to financial technology investment, despite not being the largest or most successful economy in the Eurozone.

Since 2013 the UK has accounted for 38% of all European fintech deals. In second place is Germany, grabbing 15% of the deals, despite having an economy that out-performs the UK’s. This is because the financial industry in the UK has embraced all the disruption that fintechs have brought to the financial industry.

The UK also made moves to accommodate fintech start-ups in the UK by providing a robust funding environment and a system of regulations that has allowed for disruption and competition.

Germany versus United Kingdom

Germany has a larger economy than the UK, made clear by the world ranking of GDP in dollars. Germany sits at number five with 4,720 billion dollars, while the UK follows just behind in sixthposition with 4,622 billion dollars in 2016. Even though the UK does lead the race to develop financial technology, Germany isn’t far behind.

Fintechwebnews.co.uk reports on a recent report from CBInsights that has shown that after an average of 14 early-stage deals from 2012 through to 2014, early-stage deals for fintechs have grown and started to increase. In 2015 Germany had 23 early-stage fintech deals. In 2016 that increased to 34.

The amount invested in fintech start-ups is also increasing. In 2016, $134 million was invested and this year there has already been $83 million invested, over 22 deals.

Is the UK losing steam?

The UK’s numbers are down from previous years. The peak of investment and deals in the UK was in 2015, but the UK is still out-performing Germany when it comes to investment. In 2015 the UK raised $284 million, but in 2016 the numbers were down to $181 million. This year seems on track for growth rather than a $100 million downturn.

The question is if Germany will ever catch up or even overtake the UK’s investment prowess. Only time will tell so keep an eye on fintechwebnews.co.uk for further reports and news.

In the past, big banks and other financial institutions have stayed out of the way of the expanding fintech industry. The reason for this is most likely because they wanted to avoid embracing the very technologies that threatened to end their monopoly on the banking, finance, loaning and investment industries.

Here atfintechwebnews.co.uk, we understand that because of the rapid expansion of fintechs, big banks have to start paying attention to what is happening in their world. To put it simply, if well-established financial institutions didn’t start thinking of ways to work with the newcomers in the fintech world, they would be swallowed up and left behind.

Consumers benefitting from better service

Consumers around the world have been benefiting from more efficient and versatile financial services for some time now; we have reported on fintechwebnews.co.uk about a lot of great services such as Uber and PayPal.

A big part of the rise in fintechs is their advantage of speed and agility. Fintech start-ups benefit especially from this advantage, changing and evolving rapidly to find solutions to problems everyday consumers face.

Just a few of the services brought forward by these fintech companies are peer-to-peer payments, artificial intelligence fraud detection and smart loans.

Banks and fintechs leaning on each other

The world of banking is being revolutionised by the implementation of technology. Technologies are being developed to help investment bankers make better choices than ever and helping traders make well informed, more profitable trades.

As financial technology now helps the banks directly, they have had huge injections of cash to develop software and change the face of banking forever. A good example of this investment is finance giant Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs invested more than $570 million in fintech companies since 2012.

Many people are worrying about the future of the UK’s financial industry, especially after Brexit. Speculators believe that many banks are going to vacate to find more stable economic climates in Europe, so will London become a city of empty offices?

Most likely not. The ever-growing world of financial technology is inhabiting London more than any other city on the planet. In FinTechCity´slatest annual fintech top 50 list, 31 of the listed fintechs are based in London.

One such fintech is Algomi. News is that Algomi is rapidly expanding its operations with partnerships and investments from various sources. Most recently with AllianceBernstein, with Algomiacquiring the ALFA fixed income liquidity analytics tool.

Partnerships leading the way

For the company, there’s no better Algomi news. With Algomi’s help, AllianceBernstein has developed their ALFA technology. It provides information on liquidity and trade intent. This information gives the buy-side trader an accurate, up to date view of the entire bond market, including structured credit, government bonds, investment grades, high yields, municipal debt and the emerging market.

Algomi was selected after a very competitive search to find the sole marketer of the product. It will be marketed to buy-side fund managers, giving them access to a large amount of data from direct dealer inventory feeds, electronic venues and messaging platforms.

As Algomi focuses on data technology AllienceBernstein made the decision to join with them in this project. To protect a client’s privacy, clients own their own data and has Algomi has no access to it. Algomi clients will procure their own hardware via an approved cloud provider and Algomi simply deploys ALFA technology, maintaining Algomi’s role as purely a software provider.

The future looks bright for Algomi

As with many other financial technology companies based in London, the future is bright and exciting. In March Algomi bagged a $10 million investment from pan-European exchange market Euronext.

This deal involves a 10-year plan to develop software on both the buy-side and sell-side of the industry. Even if big banking vacates London, financial technology will most likely take its place.

For more Algomi news and any developments on London’s financial industry, visit us at fintechwebnews.co.uk

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), partnership and joint ventures between well-established market infrastructure and financial technology companies is key to gaining shares. They believe over-the-counter products are shifting to electronic trading.

According to the report carried out by the WEF, it is noted that brand new market platforms don’t often challenge incumbent institutions and that partnerships and collaboration between established institutions and fintech companies is the most successful path to growth.

Fintechs allowing for rapid innovation

The co-author of the WEF report, Rob Galaski said in a statement: “Fintechs have changed the basis of competition in financial services, but not the competitive landscape. Fintechs now define the tempo and direction of innovation in financial services, but high customer switching costs and the rapid response of incumbents has challenged their ability to scale”.

In the grand scheme of things fintechs haven’t challenged any financial institutions, but their partnerships have changed the financial landscape and the way people work in the industry.

The report used the example of Algomi. News was that Euronext, the pan-European exchange, and Algomi had entered a partnership, with Euronext acquiring a minority share in start-up Algomi.

Even when significant advantages in terms of efficiency exist on new trading platforms, financial institutions may prefer not to switch due to the high cost of doing so. They also would prefer to avoid disruption in the network of relationships they have built that characterise capital markets. This is another reason why partnership is often a better option.

Euronext invested $10 million for a minority stake in Algomi in March. This deal involves working to develop relationships with regional exchanges to establish an automated trading system in North America.

This isn’t the only partnership for Algomi. In May, Algomi partnered with well-established fund manager AllianceBernstein to create software that shows an aggregated picture of bond liquidity.

This technology will benefit buy-side traders, allowing them to see a clearer picture of the often fragmented and complex market. Algomi’s ALFA technology will help traders make more efficient trades. Check back for more Algomi news at fintechwebnews.co.uk.

The latest news at fintechwebnews.co.uk is that British fintech start-up Neyber has secured £21m in funding for their loan granting company. The funding has come from quite an unusual place. Several thousand police officers, two former Goldman Sachs executives, and an Indian investment company have teamed together to invest in the company.

What do 5000 policemen, former banking execs, and Indian investors have in common?

They make up Neyber, which provides loans that are repaid out of people´s salaries. The 2 former Goldman Sachs executives that started the company, Martin Ljaha and Monica Kalia, left Goldman Sachs almost 5 years ago.

The Indian investment group, Wadhawan Group, is a leading investor in the UK fintech sector, leading Neyber´s latest £21m cash injection. Neyber provides loans for approximately 5000 police officers. It has provided more than £65m in just over two and a half years, helping many people to buy properties. The Police Mutual was an initial investor in Neyber and provides it with money to fund it´s loans to police officers up and down the UK.

Next steps for Neyber

Here at fintechwebnews.co.uk we have found that Neyber´s goal is to launch it´s own savings product by combining loans with tax-free ISAs that it could offer employees who want to earn higher returns on their hard-earned money. The company´s interest rates come in three different bands;

´Great´charging – just 4.9% annual interest;

´Good´charging – 6.9% annual interest;

´OK´charging – 9.9% annual interest.

They claim that they can save the average borrower a fifth on their existing debt repayments. They also aim to educate people in the ways of finance, improving their scores from ´OK´ upwards. By cutting out the middle man when lending, the company can offer better interest rates and even provide education.

Neyber can also grant a higher percentage of personal loans as there is less risk when making deals with an individual´s employer rather than just with the individual. When dealing directly with employers, there is also a larger amount of information to be gathered from the lender.

The company claims that because of this stability, there have just been thirty defaults on over 7000 loans they have granted. For regular news check back with us at fintechwebnews.co.uk.

In recent news, reported here at fintechwebnews.co.uk, the European exchanges operator Euronext has extended it´s recent acquisition history with the purchase of a majority stake in Dutch company iBabs. IBabs is an online portal for corporate boards and was acquired by Euronext for €30.1 million.

Euronext will take a 60 percent stake in the Dutch company whose revenue in 2016 was €5.9 million. iBabs made earnings of €3.8 million before tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation, with first half revenues up 29% year on year.

Euronext already owns a similar company that supplies webcasting and other investor relations tools and wants to expand it´s existing company to lessen Euronext´s dependence on earnings from share trading and avoid general market instability.

The rapid expansion of Euronext

Back in May, Euronext decided to turn it´s attention to the usually bank-dominated world of currency markets. Euronext broke into the foreign exchange market with the acquisition of FastMatch for an initial sum of $153 million. This sum bought Euronext a 90% stake in FastMatch, making them the majority shareholder by a long way.

“The acquisition of FastMatch breaks new ground for Euronext, through expansion into the FX market which is the world’s largest traded asset class,” said Stéphane Boujnah, chief executive of Euronext.

In the last 2 years, Bats Global Markets and Deutsche Börse, Euronext´s 2 main rivals, have also made similar moves by acquiring assets in the usually bank-dominated market.

Diversifying to increase stability

In the wake of financial crisis, many companies have chosen to diversify into different areas other than stocks and shares trading. Foreign exchange or FX is a $5.1 trillion exchange market, opening up possibilities for companies like Euronext to begin building a more stable company in the event of another financial crisis.

Euronext´s recent partnership with software company Algomi is also a big move to diversify with the impending changes to the European economic landscape with the UK´s departure from the European Union. We have written before on fintechwebnews.co.uk about Brexit. Brexit creates much uncertainty for the European Union and companies operating in the area need to think of plans for stability, especially in the coming years.

For more fintech news, stay tuned to www.fintechwebnews.co.uk for all the latest developments.